I have to agree with akots on 2 points, first its nearly impossible to win by domination on huge and large maps against other humans and second i never felt any less accomplishment by not fighting to the death. Peace has its excitement as well


Anyway given the layout of this map i think there will be less alliances formed since the areas of common interest are smaller. I'd also predict a lot less open border deals because it prevent your opponents from opposite sides teaming up.

First, I think that when the deal was made, you did not even have Astronomy. It was not end-game deal but it had indefinite peace unless given a 20-turn warning IIRC. The remainder of the game took less than 100 turns IIRC. So, you possibly could not have helped especially considering the fact that one of your vassals was supplying BCLG with troops and possibly monies, and doing that quite actively. So, no, you were not even considered to be a friend who could help, quite the opposite. [satan] Second, IIRC, you actually attacked Darkness and even razed some coastal holy city of his and did other nasty stuff to no avail. I fully supported righteous struggle of Vikings (sic!) against marauder bandit pillagers from overseas. [lol] And in the end, I actually attacked in Alaska with some troops which did not have anything better to do and you even sank quite a few of my transports and destroyers prior to us making peace and resuming co-existence. So, the second point is mute as well.

I guess that shows that human memory is short and there is nothing wrong with that but ... let's not try to misinterpret the facts and clearly separate the actual happenings from fiction here.

Same thing with Stapel in previous Crap game. While actively pursuing hostile course against Beam, there was quite a desire to enter trade and even closer cooperation with me and ynnek on Egyptian side. Was there any idea that we could have had a good relationship with nice alliance in-between the three of us on the other continent? I'm just puzzled that these things do come as a surprise. But let's not contemplate on that. Otherwise old Stapel's wound which is already healed might start bleeding anew and we lose a great player for this current game. [evil]

I do remember the game better now. ;) And also that is was perhaps the most fun pitboss I ever played! It was fun to play the part of the Big Bad Barbarian. :D Too bad I couldn't use nukes yet. I really miss nukes in these pitbosses.

When I played Risk with my family it was going up and down. Once one player was about to win everyone would team up against him just in time, then someone else threatens to win and all would fight him... Why that doesn't happen in Civ is IMO part of those unbreakable deals we make. That's why I commented on it.

By the way, your indefinite-peace-unless-given-a-20-turn -warning deal is basically a permanent peace treaty. 20 turns is long! By the time you think you might lose the space race it'll take less than 20 turns for the game to finish.

My opinion is that if people were hounorring their deals (like I am :) ) then they would think twice before making a deal and be certain that this is to their best interest.

With the deal braking happening often, people just don't think too much about the deals, they say...oh why not, if I don't like it down the road I can change it.

Now regarding late game akots told it perfectly...usually if you attack someone late in the game, just to deprive him of winning, someone else will win and usually it will not be you.

So if it is someone that you worked with during the game then why not let him win if you feel you don't have a chance of winning yourself?

I've got a few things to say about it now. At the time, I never realised that getting a diplo vic was quite a hard puzzle to solve. Not being the type to be bothered about diplo victories, I simply assumed that we had a 4 player end game, where 3 players got bored and simply declared one of them winner. That's how it felt to me, at the time. I really thought you couldn't be arsed to plan an invasion, on either island.

And it wasn't a real surprise either. If you read my spoiler, you can see I did refer to the option of Beam getting a diplo vic, but in the same sentence expressed my view that you wouldn't do that..... I only put in other words :) .


About deals: I think they shouldn't be broken ever. The very best way to acheive is, is to put limits on deals and to make realistic deals. In the other Crap game, I think Ynnek got split up in two contradicting deals. Unintentional, maybe unexpected, but I think we all should put a lot of effort in avoiding those situations.
This also applies to "peace locks". Being locked up in strong or permanent deals, which result in an end game where the majority of players can do nothing but watching 2 players racing for space. I guess you all know I prefer the sword over the rocket :D .

I also dislike spreading false info. Pretending to argue over the details of a future deal, stalling a bit, whilst building up a force is, IMHO, not the way to go in civ. Try the diplomacy board game for this kind of subterfuge! I realise that not all of us will garee on this!

Yeah, just to say to the ones that weren't in the game: Don't be surprised if there are some surrounding conditions if you make a peace deal with me, s.t. that such situations are solved before they might occur...

In short: I had a peace deal with Civ A and an alliance with Civ B. Civ A gave Civ B a warning and eventually declared war on Civ B.

So I had a peace deal with Civ A and ha d to help my ally Civ B. So, not possible to do both at the same time.

( So, expect if you make a peace deal with me, then that I will exclude the case where you declare war on an ally of mine )

In any other case I sticked to my deals.

BTW, I prefer peace deals over alliances, but in that case, we had one very very strong neighbor who we had to keep in check.

Please understand I don not recall all details of this situation.
But I think one should not make a peace deal with CIV A, if one has already promised CIV B that he can count on assistance when he (CIV B) gets attacked by CIV A. Even when you think it is unlikely that CIV A will attack CIV B.

IIRC, you handled the situation pretty well at the time.

The reason we make these deals is that there is less to gain from fighting in some circumstances. I know in CDZ Earth 1 akots and myself made a game long deal because attaking each other was utterly pointless. We both had 20+ cities with room for more and a very long border. The amount of units that would have been needed to defend from each other would have been a huge drain where as gain of some extra cities were minimal. I knew going into the deal i was running the risk of akots beating me to the spaceship launch without me being able to do a thing about it but on the balance of things my chances of winning were higher then if we were battling. So why choose war when peace is the better option?

As it was i won beating akots and BCLG launches by a few turns and psycho stapels launch of a very different kind by a turn (what is it with people playing the aztecs need for violence on our earth maps) so from my point of view it was a very exciting if mostly bloodless finish.

The main problem (as you see it) for a lack of wars is that for the most part our games have big maps without many players leaving people vast areas to build all the cities they need without having to fight anyone, that why you get long term deals in the first place. If you really want a war filled game start one with a very crowded map, say 8 people on a small map. And if you think us CDZers would still be too nice to attack each other turn off all victories except conquest and domination.

Well, we are not your family, however much we would like to be. No pun intended. This essentially spells it out IMO.

[lol]